This dynamic business biography is packed with great stories and practical lessons from one of the most successful figures in the entertainment industry today.

Journalist Tyler Gray’s The Hit Charade is the true story of boy band manager Lou Pearlman’s epic rise and fall. Without Lou Pearlman, there would have been no Backstreet Boys, no *NSYNC, and possibly no Justin Timberlake. In the late 1990s, Pearlman’s boy bands ushered out guitar-and-angst-driven grunge music and began to dominate the television and radio airwaves. At the core of this squeaky-clean pop revolution was a sinister international fraud conceived by Pearlman, a huckster who first honed his crooked business skills as a teenage math nerd and blimp enthusiast in Flushing, Queens. From the mid 1980s through 2007, he cheated hundreds of investors out of nearly $500 million. When they finally caught on to him and demanded their money, the “Sixth Backstreet Boy” had already fled to Germany and then to Indonesia, where he was eventually nabbed by authorities and charged with a historic federal fraud. In The Hit Charade, Tyler Gray (the only journalist to speak with Pearlman while he was in jail) weaves together the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the greedy desperation of this boy-band mogul and monumental scam artist. Gray unravels Pearlman’s twenty-year long Ponzi scheme and explores persistent rumors about alleged inappropriate behavior by Pearlman toward members of the boy bands and other young men. Along the way, former friends, family members, Pearlman business associates, and band members themselves reveal detailed accounts of everything from the heyday of their stardom to Pearlman’s more troubled times. “Lou Pearlman’s schemes were so outlandish they can’t possibly have been real. But Tyler Gray exposes him as one of the most sinister scam artists in history.” —Joe Levy

For the first time, Appetite for Self-Destruction recounts the epic story of the precipitous rise and fall of the recording industry over the past three decades, when the incredible success of the CD turned the music business into one of the most glamorous, high-profile industries in the world -- and the advent of file sharing brought it to its knees. In a comprehensive, fast-paced account full of larger-than-life personalities, Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper shows that, after the incredible wealth and excess of the '80s and '90s, Sony, Warner, and the other big players brought about their own downfall through years of denial and bad decisions in the face of dramatic advances in technology. Big Music has been asleep at the wheel ever since Napster revolutionized the way music was distributed in the 1990s. Now, because powerful people like Doug Morris and Tommy Mottola failed to recognize the incredible potential of file-sharing technology, the labels are in danger of becoming completely obsolete. Knopper, who has been writing about the industry for more than ten years, has unparalleled access to those intimately involved in the music world's highs and lows. Based on interviews with more than two hundred music industry sources -- from Warner Music chairman Edgar Bronfman Jr. to renegade Napster creator Shawn Fanning -- Knopper is the first to offer such a detailed and sweeping contemporary history of the industry's wild ride through the past three decades. From the birth of the compact disc, through the explosion of CD sales in the '80s and '90s, the emergence of Napster, and the secret talks that led to iTunes, to the current collapse of the industry as CD sales plummet, Knopper takes us inside the boardrooms, recording studios, private estates, garage computer labs, company jets, corporate infighting, and secret deals of the big names and behind-the-scenes players who made it all happen. With unforgettable portraits of the music world's mighty and formerly mighty; detailed accounts of both brilliant and stupid ideas brought to fruition or left on the cutting-room floor; the dish on backroom schemes, negotiations, and brawls; and several previously unreported stories, Appetite for Self-Destruction is a riveting, informative, and highly entertaining read. It offers a broad perspective on the current state of Big Music, how it got into these dire straits, and where it's going from here -- and a cautionary tale for the digital age.

"My name is Justin. I guess I should go ahead and tell you I sing." -- Justin Timberlake at age eleven The meteoric rise of Justin Timberlake from one-fifth of boy band *NSYNC to one of the world's top male solo artists has been nothing short of extraordinary. But how did this precocious curly-haired boy from the Tennessee Bible Belt and former Mickey Mouse Club member transform himself into "The New King of Pop" (Rolling Stone) and one of the most respected young R & B artists around? Bestselling author Sean Smith has traveled across the country to discover the real Justin. Through a series of exclusive interviews, he assembles a rich portrait of Justin's rural childhood outside Memphis, the talent show years, the Mickey Mouse Club era -- when he met Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera -- the rise of *NSYNC, and the breakthrough solo album, Justified, that brought Timberlake critical acclaim and superstar status all his own. Justin: The Unauthorized Biography also uncovers the truth about the women in Justin's life -- from first love all the way to Cameron Diaz -- and offers fascinating insights on why his first three serious relationships, including his most famous affair with Britney, ended with Justin crying "she cheated!" With over twenty pages of full-color photographs, an exclusive birth chart, complete discography, and updates on his thrilling new film-acting career, Justin: The Unauthorized Biography is a must-have biography of the man the NME has dubbed "the coolest man in pop."

Allen prepares you for the realities of successfully directing the careers of talented performers in the high-risk, high-reward music business. You will learn to prepare yourself for a career in artist management - and then learn the tools to coach, lead, organize time, manage finances, market an artist, and carve out a successful career path for both yourself and your clients. The book features profiles of artist managers, an exclusive and detailed template for an artist career plan, and samples of major contract sections for artist management and record deals. Updated information including a directory of artist management companies is available at the book's companion website. A peer reviewer for Artist Management for the Music Business proclaimed ".this is going to be an excellent text. It contains many unique insights and lots of valuable information. This is essential reading for managers, students, and artists in the music business.

Artist Management for the Music Business provides clear in depth information on what to do as an artist manager and how to do it. The book looks at the application of classic management theory to artist management, includes profiles of successful artist managers as well as offering skill development for planning, coaching, and leading.

This book cracks the supposedly indecipherable code of marketing to the New Chinese Consumer--all 1.3 billion of them. It distills what Tom Doctoroff has learned over the past eleven years in Greater China with JWT, one of the region's largest advertising agencies. Marketers of some of the world's leading brands come to China with mistaken ideas of how to apply Western thinking to the marketplace. But the same rules do not apply in China. Doctoroff delves into the psyches of contemporary Chinese consumers to explain the importance of culture in shaping buying decisions. He provides tools to help readers harness the power of insight into consumers' fundamental motivations and reveals the pitfalls into which many multinational competitors often fall. Anyone who plans to do business in China shouldn't get on the plane without this book.

From “Grand Hotel” to “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” Joan Crawford played some of the finest parts Hollywood had to offer, establishing a reputation as the most spectacular diva on the silver screen. Even when the cameras quit rolling, her life never stopped being over-the-top. In My Way of Life, a cult classic since it was first published in the early 1970’s, Crawford shares her secrets. Part memoir, part self-help book, part guide to being fabulous, My Way of Life advises the reader on everything from throwing a small dinner party for eighteen to getting the most out of a marriage. Featuring tips on fashion, makeup, etiquette and everything in between, it is an irresistible look at a bygone era, when movie stars were pure class, and Crawford was at the top of the heap.

"What corporations fear most are consumers who ask questions. Naomi Klein offers us the arguments with which to take on the superbrands." Billy Bragg from the bookjacket.

"An utterly satisfying examination of the business of popular music." —Nathaniel Rich, The Atlantic There’s a reason today’s ubiquitous pop hits are so hard to ignore—they’re designed that way. The Song Machine goes behind the scenes to offer an insider’s look at the global hit factories manufacturing the songs that have everyone hooked. Full of vivid, unexpected characters—alongside industry heavy-hitters like Katy Perry, Rihanna, Max Martin, and Ester Dean—this fascinating journey into the strange world of pop music reveals how a new approach to crafting smash hits is transforming marketing, technology, and even listeners’ brains. You’ll never think about music the same way again. A Wall Street Journal Best Business Book